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Just so everyones clear, the city of Arlington didntn pay for this logo. The Downtown Arlington Management Corporation handled this. They are a private non-profit entity that works within the city to promote business and tourism in specifically the downtown area. The Arlington CVB does the same thing except for the entire city. I work in the tourism industry so I have experience with these sort of "branding" matters. How these places are funded are usually a small percentage of every hotel room sold is given to these entity's with the hopes that they use that money to promote travelers to come stay in nearby hotels and eat at their restaurants. No city or tax payer money is involved because they are funded privately by local business owners. I don't know if anyone cares just thought I'd share. Oh and this logo blows ass.

My kid would actually have done much better. I'll have to show her this so that maybe she'll see that she already has more talent than some 'designers' who do this for a living. She's interested in a career in graphic design but isn't confident in her abilities (and just claims I am biased because I'm mom).

I'm just happy Arlington is finally planning their growth... Arlington always had this attitude of "we're not a college town" well they are and they to embrace it. When you don't plan your city growth, you get shitty, scuzzy Arlington with super fancy areas and ghetto as fuck areas... there's nothing in between. I graduate next year, but shit I'm glad UTA is partnering with the city on this and that Arlington might finally have a real downtown. Arlington isn't a real city imo until it has a fucking skyline. Which I'm hoping they'll PLAN for instead of just letting shit happen willy-nilly like they always have.

Source: My father was a city manager for 15 years.

PS. too late to protest lol most of that shit has already been built/ is already paid for

You do have a point and I feel you on the skyline part. but I don't want us to look like a children's town if we are to embrace the college town. We need some more blue and orange and not this crap! whoop whoop!

I read that too. I think in part should have been added. I can't say for sure how the inner workings of Arlingtons tourism industry works, but from what I know, these things are not entirely funded by the local government or residents. I looked at the DAMC's board of directors on their website and it looks like mainly members of the community... Small business owners, resturants, church leaders...ect. So yes, through the efforts of the city and residents, the DAMC is funded but how much is hard to tell.

A little further down this page under About the New Arlington Management Corporation:

Yelverton said the new president of the corporation will help manage an annual operating budget of about $250,000 with funds derived from three primary sources: Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone No. 1, the Arlington Housing Finance Corporation and the hotel occupancy tax.

So, in effect, this is primarily funded by taxes. As a taxpayer, I was definitely less than enthused to find that any of my tax dollars went towards what appeared to be, to me, a "sweetheart deal" arranged with a very overpriced design agency.

I worked for the Arlington Chamber of Commerce. The CEO, Wes Jurey, makes well over $300,000 a year and is a complete tool. But he is a very connected tool. He was instrumental in getting highway funds taken away from much needed projects so that extra exits could be put in on I-30 for the new Dallas Cowboys stadium. He helped get imminent domain laws modified so that Arlington could illegally foreclose on properties that needed to be demolished for the stadium.

He keeps a low profile but is involved in all aspects of Arlington development (and politics).

Do you know what they were going for? Ex. SA likes to play up their multicultural, "fiesta" theme (and history with the Alamo and stuff) for tourist. I am confused if they wanted like a "we are fun!" theme or a "haha we don't know what we're doing!" theme.

Just hop on the subway and come on do... take the nearest light rail train to the city cen... just grab a bus and head right into the middle... Fuck it. Drive to downtown.

(Arlington is the largest city in the U.S. without public transportation of any kind. I was born and raised there; it will always be a ridiculous, at-best-mediocre suburb. I'm very glad I don't live there now.)

"How these places are funded are usually a small percentage of every hotel room sold is given to these entity's with the hopes that they use that money to promote travelers to come stay in nearby hotels and eat at their restaurants. No city or tax payer money is involved because they are funded privately by local business owners.

When I worked for the City of Arlington, the Hotel and Motel tax as it was known, was never voluntary. That makes it a tax. If one rented a room,the fee was added on, just as it is today.
Don't say it's not a tax when it plainly is.
I am unfamiliar with the "Downtown Arlington Management Corporation"
but it sounds dreadful and fully capable of a stupid design.
I suspect they are also tax supported.
"They are a private non-profit entity that works within the city to promote business and tourism in specifically the downtown area."
Probably there are tax deferments or other incentives in kind 'to promote business and tourism'.

I've never heard of hotel owners willingly giving more than a few bucks to these organizations. The money is usually taken out of a hospitality tax that is specific to lodging institutions, and is the reason that taxes are so high when you get a hotel room.

We pay 7% hospitality tax in addition to 7% city/county sales tax on every room we sell, and that is the lower end of the spectrum when compared to major cities.

You may not pay it as a resident of your city (a lot of hotel rooms are sold to local guests), but you do pay it every time you rent a hotel room elsewhere.

Please remember that the designer of this logo probably hates it as well. This has design by committee all over it. The designer just did exactly what the client wanted. I bet they came up with lots of cool, clever ideas that were wiped under the table. Or it was a board members nephew. Who knows.

Arlington, Texas is the biggest city in the United States without public transportation. (I go to school here.)

We gave hundreds of millions (around $200 million, I believe) of taxpayer dollars to Jerry Jones to build a stadium that's fucking surrounded by parking lots (not a single garage) without so much as requesting that he have a fucking train station nearby (like American Airlines Center in downtown Dallas had 10 years ago).

Fuck Arlington, Texas. This city is everything that is wrong with Texas (and many other parts of the US). This is what happens when you let urban sprawl get out of hand. People keep moving outward. Arlington was a nice "suburb" to live in 20 years ago (and still is in some parts), but now the disposable houses are getting old and the middle and upper class people are moving to newer, cooler suburbs like Southlake, Aledo, and wherever else they can pool their tax dollars to have the best possible (mostly white) schools.

What's left? Fucking Wal-Mart parking lots and other shithole strip malls that can't even give their rental space away. UTA is good school, and literally the only single redeeming quality Arlington has. The Rangers and Cowboys should be in Dallas, not next to a business park in Arlington, TX.

Cowboys Stadium is literallyacross the fucking street from a Wal-Mart. Fuck this city. :(

Honestly $30k is pretty cheap for a full branding campaign from a respectable agency, not even including logo development. The designer/agency probably presented 8-12 logos at a minimum as well, and the client either chose this one or bastardized a couple other options to come to this one.

A full branding campaign involves way more than logo development. If that's truly what they purchased (I have no clue if it is), that includes 2 or 3 strategy people doing extensive research (potentially with stakeholder interviews and/or focus groups), brand positioning, development of a creative brief or some other direction for creative, multiple designers working on logo development, development of new brand guidelines, potentially a website refresh, and usually updates to collateral (letterhead, business cards, brochures, PPT templates, etc.).

I've got no clue what they actually got for their money, but I'm betting at least some of the above was included in addition to just the development of a logo.

Haha. Arlington is the armpit of DFW, most populated by bail bond shacks and 23-car dealerships. Even the University of Texas at Arlington, which is by all accounts a great school, is overshadowed by the unfortunate truth that it is, in fact, in Arlington.

So they didn't pay 30K just for the logo, but rather then entire branding package. Even if it is ugly, quite a bit of work will go into the rest of the marketing stuff beyond just the logo. Why the misleading title?

I work in a corporate environment as a designer. You would be surprised at the amount of shitty logos I am forced to do for internal purposes, every single well thought out/executed logo gets shut down on the first round.

Holy shit, I feel your pain. Corporate IT, furtive web designer on the side. The good ideas get discarded with barely a "nah, needs more cowbell", we waste half an hour arguing over some stupid crap, then rush to finish the meeting and settle on some horrible mishmash.

So where is downtown Arlington at exactly? I grew up in Cleburne, TX. and my first job was at Six Flags I used to hang out in Arlington all the time but I stuck to cooper st. when out causing trouble after hours. I just can not picture a "downtown" part of Arlington. It all seems pretty similar to me

Damn it this pisses me off so much! I'm a graphic designer and make logos for a living and get so much shit from customers charging them a reasonable amount and some smooth son of a bitch sells this turd of a logo for $30k. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised some traveling design firm re-branded our city for about the same amount and they copied the design from another city they had done previously. Still I'd love to know the firm who had the balls to charge $30k for that.

But are you a graphic designer who's worked with a committee of idiots as your clients?

Committees are where design goes to die. Imagine your worst client. The most idiotic person you've ever worked with. Now imagine 10 of him in the same room, arguing with you, changing their minds, fighting with each other for control of the project.

The worst designs I've seen have all come out of committees.

Sure, it's possible that this logo came from an incompetent designer, but my money's on the committee doing this to themselves.

Graphic designer here. The reason why logos like these usually suck so bad is due to some secretary hiring a good designer and then telling them exactly what to design instead of letting them do their job and come up with something professional and eye catching.

Most professional designers wouldn't allow their clients to have such a terrible graphic identity but for 30 grand, my judgement might slip a little.

This makes me mad, I've paid 50$ and a case of beer for better design work than this. Don't even care if there was a $25000 campaign and it was a $5000 sign. This is a clear case of the designer saying.. how about something like this.. and a stupid person on the board who didn't know how to say.. nope.. this looks like shit.

I still think I'm more pissed about a certain "group" trying to change division street to Martin Luther king jr blvd. I'm not racist but seriously? Does every f'n city in the country have to have one of these? There's already a statue in one of Arlingtons many parks, but apparently that's not enough. I just find it stupid that they make a fuss over something as trivial as a street name that's a pretty dam big part of Arlingtons history.

That being said I like what Arlington is doing with its image but the new logo is just ridiculous.

Very close to Arlington, Texas, my mom is the city manager of an incredibly small town that is surrounded by Fort Worth. Its population is less that 5000 people, and there are only a couple of vacant parcels in town that aren't in a floodplain. There are some vacant commercial and light industrial buildings, but only one of them is available for lease and none are for sale.

Some years ago, the City Council formed an economic development corporation. In this case, it is entirely funded by the city government as there is no local chamber of commerce. The corporation was formed in hopes of increasing the tax base, obviously. What should have been obvious to the Council is that there's not much an EDC can do in a town like that.

The City has an annual budget of around 5.5 million dollars. Almost all of that goes to employee salaries/benefits and street repairs. But they give this EDC $200k per year to play with. What do they spend it on? Consultants who do nothing. Last year these consultants launched a website with the aim of luring more business into town. On three parcels. What did the website cost? $39,000 to develop, and $8000 per annum to host and maintain.

So even if the website were totally effective meaning that all vacant properties and buildings were sold/leased/developed into revenue generating tax base for the city, it would take years to pay for just the website. Remember, someone owns all the land whether it is improved or not, so it is already taxed to some degree.

TLDR - city governments are hopelessly stupid.

Oh, and there isn't really a downtown Arlington. There's a part of Arlington that's older than the rest, so I guess that's what they're talking about. It's a shitty place, though, and is full of auto shops and tarot card readers and the like. Maybe they're trying to change that, but good luck.

I live in Fort Worth and trust me $30,000 is money well spent on that because there seriously is fucking nothing in downtown Arlington.. Because there isn't even a downtown. Insert " I see what you did there" meme.
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